The Sound Of Wedding Bells
by Fliaway
Summary: The circus went down in flames, with it was the little belongings he had left of his parents. Back at the manor the Batfamily find them watching their little bird try desperately to find something - anything - to do with his parents, just to hold onto them that little bit longer. Rated T because I'm paranoid.
1. The Sound Of Drums

A.N: Dick Grayson or any of the members of the Batfamily do not belong to me but DC, if they did I would be riding around the Batmobile around about now so.

Little birds, I do hope you enjoy this.  
It's a little dark - confusing at some places - but I believe, in the end it turns around to be a rather nice story... then again I am the one writing this so.. I would..

* * *

The Sound Of Drums

In the last moments before awakening he saw Them, not at first, no, the elephant came first, the elephant whose ivory tusk glittered with silver and red and whose body shimmered in coconut milk and clothed in the thinnest silks. Mounted on top was Them, radiant as every, like two suns trying to burn the other out. They were smiling as their bodies twisted around the silver, red-lining silk that pooled down their backs, the only fabric beside their own clothing that separated them from each's flushed skin; it was hot, shockingly so. Yet the only light he saw was them. They turn then to the crowd forming around him and stretched their hands outwards in a wave. The crowd grew louder, voices raised over the sound of beating drums

- bub-bum, bub-  
bum, bub-  
bum -

the beats match the sound of his heart; loud and frantic.  
He is panicking, he's not sure why though, what there was to be panicking about but something is wrong.  
Before he can think what it is he is pushed away from the elephant and the couple on them by the crowd. They spin him around, reach and pull, force him further and further away. He doesn't want to be away from them - no, he can't - he pushes back, harder, stronger than the crowd, pushes, pulls, grabs and shoves them until they're at his feet, out of his way. He steps over them only to be grabbed again, by the ankle this time, his elbows and roots of his hair.  
He is pulled, deeper and deeper into the crowd, and he feels a terrible yearning for Them to  
see - see and stop the crowd doing this to him, stop them and hold him, hoist him up high on top of the elephant but they do not see, do not even glance his way.

-Bub-bum, bub-bum  
bub-bub -  
-bub-bum,

His heart skips a beat as he falls. His right shoulder-blade snaps in two so loudly when he hits the concrete ground that he can hear the  
crack, even under the feet of the crowd. He is unable to move his hands to soften the blow - he is unable to move at all. His muscles, bones have stopped working. He does not even flinch when he is stepped on, he does not pull away when he is grabbed and thrown to the side, he only moves - lifts his head - when the drums stop beating, when the crowd falls silent.

The couple is looking at him now.  
Heads cocked to the side, curious about why he is there. He does not belong here, after all.  
They are looking - he can tell they are smiling but how he knows this he doesn't know, because nothing is there;  
No eyes, no lips or teeth, not even finger nails or hair.  
But they can speak, soft at first like how the drums began and then louder - louder - and oh God, they're screeching! -

"LIttLE bIRD, liTTle BiRD, LITTle BIrD, whY dOn't YOU seE US LITtle BIRD, HoW hAvE YOU foRGOttEn US. WHy, wHY, whY! WeRE wE NOT GoOD EnoUgh tO YOU?! YOuR OWN pARENTS!"

He shakes his head, no, no he hasn't forgotten, he couldn't of. His eyes break down on each other and squeeze. He wants to remember, he couldn't of forgotten. But he has.

"LIttLE BIRd, LITTLE Bird!"  
What was the colour of his mamă hair again?  
"BIRD, FLy AWay BIRd, FLy!"  
His Tatas?  
"PIck AT His WiNGs, TARe, TARE!"  
How big was his Tata's nose?  
"TARE HiM AWAy, HE HaS FoRGOTten!"  
mamă had four freckles on her knuckle - shaped like a star  
"NO GOOD!"  
Or was that Tata?  
"NO GOOD!"  
Tata had long lashes  
"AWAY, AWAY  
WAY  
WAKE, WAKE"  
Right?

"WAKE UP!"  
no.  
"Little BIRd, wake Up"  
Not until he remembers not before he -

"RICHARD JOHN GRAYSON!"  
remembers his name.

* * *

A/N: That got dark and confusing fast now, didn't it?


	2. The Sound Of Lost

A/N: Hello pretty little birds.  
Before beginning let me remind you that I do not own Dick(Richard) Grayson or any members of the Batfamily... if I did I would not be writing this, but instead getting a lift in the Batmobile.

This chapter is a little odd at the start, if there is any confusion please just PM me and I shall explain it as best as I can, okay? okay.

In the last chapter Dick was in the middle of a dream, one where he saw the fac- _er_, well, not quite faces of his parents and is now beginning to away from that. Kinda. Maybe.

* * *

**The Sound Of Lost**

In the last moments before awakening he saw them, not at first of course, no, the elephant always came first, always. The elephant always - (he has seen it happen so many times now) - fell, to its knees it did. Its tusk would start to sway, like broken hips of an old man dancing to the blues - it was like it was listening to something - something... beautiful.

- _bub_-bum, _bub_-  
b_um_, _bub_-  
bum,

his heart - no, his heart was too broken to be considered beautiful but that was  
the only sound. No whispers, no shuffle of feet or screeching. Nothing, but his heart.

_bub_-b_um_  
b_ub_-bub-_bu_ -

skipping, like a broken record.  
Skipping, like tripping, tripping over her feet the elephant and trying - always she had tried to - catch herself, remain steady but her knees - weak from what? - bucked from under her and there she fell, with her tusk still swaying beside her.  
No one moved.  
Not the elephant - not the people, not his pare- _oh._

He stopped breathing.

His parents had fallen second - no, wait third, the crowd had become a crumpled heap under the elephant's belly. Limbs were twisted, heads were cracked, eyes were wide - fearful - some glazed over like the elephants' now.

Her tusk stopped moving.  
There was no music to listen to - his heart had skipped and kept skipping.

_"Richard John grayson!"_

He looked at his parents.

_"Dickie Bird, wake up already!"_

There was nothing to see.  
Where their faces were there was nothing but he knew - he just knew - somehow that they were looking at them  
their eyes -

_"RICHARD JOHN GRAYSON!"_

looking right passed him.

And then the light - a bright light, like they had always said would come when death had.  
But it was not his life he was taking, he did not belong here, they had said.  
He belongs with them - with ... the voice who had been calling for him. He had been hearing it, just vaguely and - and he needed to go, now.  
_Going_ -_ going _ - say goodbye to tata, to mama and Zitka, wave to the crowd and  
_going _ - _going _ - bow, remember to bow after a show - _going_

- _gone._

"Alfred?" voice, so unused until then sounded hoarse.

"There we are, my boy. Finally awake I see, it took quite a bit I can tell you.  
Come on, just open up your eyes, Dick. Can you do that - can you do that for us, Dick?"  
He sounded worried. Scared. His voice tighter than his own.

"Y-eahh, I can do that, I can for you"  
Slowly, he did just that. He opened them and - there they were!  
the voices that he could hear, all of them perched at the end of his bed, beside Bruce and Alfred who had remained stood on either side of his bed.

This struck him as odd. This - them being here, like this. Alfred sounding like that had only happened once, when he was much younger and he had been shot, when he had been dying. Dying.  
His heart had stopped - but that happened in the dream - _no_, nightmare.  
Hadn't it?

"-Are you alright?" he asked. He had too, they were kinda creeping him out the way they were looking at him like that.

"Tt, Grayson! We're the ones who should be asking you that, not the other way around damn it!"

"Damian!" Bruce warned the eldest of sons, yet eyes had remained on Dick.

"W-huh why? Why wouldn't I be okay?"

He was met with looks worse then before - Bruce's forehead creased, reminding Dick of that time he got him to eat a whole Whopper Whammy, a new ice-cream in Bucking and Barnes only to get a brain freeze.  
Tim had taken a step back, right into Stephanie's chest. He was fearing for the worse - the worse of what exactly Dick didn't know but it was bad, really bad he knew when Alfred, calm, collective Alfred flinched at his words._ Flinched. _

"Dick..." Bruce began, settling down next to him. He looked so strange sitting on such a small bad having the large frame he had gotten over the years of training. But no amount of training could ever make this easy.

_"The circus - son, the circus is gone"_

* * *

A.N: Did I not mention that the ages are reversed here? no? oh, my bad. Well now you know.  
Damian is 18 - closing onto 19.  
Tim and Steph are 17.  
Cassandra is 16 (and a half, thank you very much!)  
Jason and Barbara 15 and Dick is 14. 


	3. The Sound Of Flames

N.A: Another day, another chapter it seems.  
Lets take a step inside the lives of the Batfamily and see - but first, remember that neither Dick or the Batfamily belong to me. I would be swinging on a gabbling hook around about now if I did.

* * *

**The Sound Of Flames****__**

_ba_-dum  
ba_-du_-

Hits the ground and breaks, my heart.  
In pieces, I know it is, lay disregarded on the floor. No one glances at them, no one sees but the look of horror - of realisation that dawns on Dick's face. It is then they step forward, then they act, reaching out, fingers spread like they're about to touch him but they don't. They stop and only when he looks down does Dick understand why. Bandages, even this much, cannot hide away the visible truth to his father's words, "the circus - son, the circus is gone". Here, the fear lays whole. If his heart had no shattered, he knew it would've dropped out from his chest for there was little to keep it in, for his skin was burnt. Blanked skin, just enough left to cling to his skin, enough to not want to touch for fear it would fall off and then -  
then he'd need more bandages.

"Do you remember the fire?"

He'd like to shake his head, like to tell him he can't smell the burning flesh still or feel the flaming beast breath down his neck now, watching, waiting for him to answer, smirk apparent on its face. He'd like to tell him no, tell him straight too with confidence but he can not; though heart is shattered, his mind still works,  
reminding him of the night the circus came down in flames.

First, because she always came first, was the elephant, Zitka.  
She had tried to remove the burning tent walls that came down upon her from her back, but with each touch of her tusk is had scolded her right back, burnt a rim of rings around it until she all but gave in, falling to her knees. She had laid there, her bleeding tusk reaching out to -  
to -  
him.  
They had all done the same, within their last moments of living. All had somehow tried to tell him to _go_ or reach out to him like he was the light they had to see before they could stop - just stop, just like that, either from burning or living he didn't know - his thoughts were not yet there.

Then some of the crowd.  
The flames spared no one, not children or their mothers, nor Jack - his Jack, his Uncle Jack.  
He had been the one telling him to _go, to stop - stop moving further in, leave him behind. _  
From his bandages Dick knew he hadn't. He had tried to get to Jack and had succeeded, and well at that.  
Before hoisting Jack over his shoulders - his strength coming from pure adrenaline and the madness to live from only the flames could have given him - Dick had spared the panthers, a child and pried open the cages to the rest of the animals, letting them lead in front of him, for their senses for better here. With Jack, the child clutching at his back and what little the flames didn't have chance to touch, Dick had made it outside of the tent.  
Collapsing beside Jack, did he only then hear - or, better for sense, not hear - his heart.

Jack laid clutching at his chest, eyes glazed over looking up at the sky filled with smoke. Dick pushed into him. And pushed him and shaken and butted his forehead to Jack's, but Jack remained staring upwards. This - that  
that -  
right there rippled something within the boy.  
It got a reaction and it was like mind detached from body, for the body moved on its own, without thought, without little hesitate to the burning tent and -

her plunged inside the tents blazing mouth.  
Its teeth came like hot iron down on his bare back and swallowed him whole.

...

"You went back in, in and out without stopping, refusing medical help each time you came back out with someone else in your arms, alive and dead. Only when you were sure - completely and utterly sure had you allowed anyone to even come near you.  
That's when Jason, Alfred and I arrived. We - for a second we actually thought that you were wer- _er_..."  
The words_ were dead_ hung loosely in the air.

_If only_, were its unsaid partner beside it. 

* * *

A.N: So, heh.  
About Zitka and Jack ... right, well. Er. Sorry about that.  
Oopsie. My hand must've slipped.

I am going to bed now, for it is almost three in the morning.  
Good night, my pretty little birds.  
Please review - tell me what you birdies think about this and the other chapters.  
I like to know what you think is going to happen! 


End file.
